Michigan

MSU defends response to ex-football star's alleged sex assault

Michigan State University wide-out Keith Mumphery catches a touchdown pass in December 2013.Mike Mulholland | MLive.com

GRAND RAPIDS, MI - Michigan State University disputed allegations that its response to a former football standout's alleged sex assault caused further harm to the alleged victim, a student.

The university said its actions did not cause the student to suffer harassment - she did not see the now-former football player, Keith Mumphery, again on campus.

"Mere delays in the disciplinary process, or a schools' failure to follow its internal policies and procedures, do not rise to the level of deliberate indifference," MSU attorney Robert Kent wrote in recently filed court documents.

He said that universities are not required to provide a "particular response" when one student accuses another of sexual assault.

"To find otherwise would essentially require schools to immediately expel anyone accused of sexual misconduct, putting Universities in the dilemma of choosing between violating a claimant's rights under Title IX, and violating a claimant's right to due process," Kent wrote.

He said he would ask that the lawsuit be dismissed.

The student who brought the suit, identified in court records as Jane Doe, has filed a federal lawsuit against MSU, its Board of Trustees and Lou Anna Simon, the MSU president who resigned after the Larry Nassar scandal in which the ex-MSU doctor molested hundreds of young athletes over the years.

Attorneys for the alleged victim contended that the university was deliberately indifferent to her complaint.

"In her Complaint, Plaintiff pled that she was sexually assaulted by a fellow student, a notable MSU football player, in her dormitory room on school grounds, that she notified the appropriate authorities of the rape, the Defendants offered her no protections or accommodations, that defendant's first investigation was deemed arbitrary and capricious, that Defendants have a culture of protecting male athletes against claims of sexual assault, that after the second investigating Plaintiff was again not offered protections or accommodations, that, indeed, the Defendants invited Plaintiff's attacker to return to MSU and East Lansing to attend sporting related events despite the fact that Plaintiff was still a student," attorneys Karen Truszkowski and Julie Jacot wrote.

They said MSU's investigations are biased against women, and "absolutely failed, after both investigations, to provide or notify Plaintiff of any protections or accommodations to which she was entitled," the attorneys wrote.

The alleged victim was an 18-year-old freshman when the alleged assault happened March 17, 2015, in her dormitory room. She had invited him over after she had been drinking.

Mumphery graduated in 2014 and played his last year as a fifth-year senior. He was not charged with a crime, and played two years with the NFL's Houston Texans.

He was eventually banned from campus, from June 7, 2016, to Dec. 31, 2018.

The lawsuit said he attended an MSU-sponsored football camp on June 18, 2016, and was invited to a June 17, 2016 golf outing sponsored by the university.

The lawsuit cites alleged violations of Title IX, which protects people from gender-based discrimination in educational programs or activities.

Ingham County prosecutors "declined to press charges because the case could not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt and the accuser did not return contact," the Detroit Free Press reported after obtaining police reports of the incident.

Attorneys for the women conceded MSU is not considered a person under the law, and has immunity, and that Simon and the Board of Trustees have qualified immunity, but they are pursuing a Title IX claim.

The young woman reported the alleged sexual assault to university police the night it happened, the lawsuit said.

Three days later, she reported the assault to MSU's Office for Inclusion and Intercultural Initiatives, later renamed Office of Institutional Equity, or OIE, and tasked with conducting Title IX investigations, the lawsuit said.

It took six months to conduct the investigation, which, by MSU policy, was supposed to be completed within 90 days, the lawsuit said.